The red sweden synths maker Clavia announced the Nord Stage 76, a 76 medium weighted keys version of their synth/piano instrument in a smaller form than the 88 flagship. Price TBA. Along this new Stage of affairs… Clavia gave hints of the forthcoming Stage OS 2.0:

Arturia presents you with a perfect hybrid of two synthesizers that changed the face of music during the 70's and 80's. The warmth of the Prophet 5, one first programmable polyphonic analogue synthesizer, meets the digital features of the Prophet VS in a new unison called the Prophet V. This new vurtual synth by Arturia is loaded with more than 400 presets, and can be used as stand-alone software or as virtual instrument.

Prophet V will cost $249.

Steinberg released SDK for a new version of its Virtual Studio Technology interface standard. The latest 2.4 version of the popular plug-in standard offers new features for developers of audio applications and plug-ins, including full support for 64-bit audio, double precision floating point capability and complete compatibility with the newest Intel-based Apple Macintosh computers.

The VST 2.4 SDK is available now as a download from www.steinberg.net.

Steinberg today presented the new version of its Virtual Guitarist software product at the Winter NAMM show in Anaheim, California. Offering a full 6.8 GB of authentic, editable riffs, parts and licks in 88 musical styles, offering a staggering total of nearly 1100 different parts across 88 styles including pop, rock, metal, reggae and country to name but a few. Virtual Guitarist 2 offers a complete computer-based instrument that creates realistic electric and acoustic rhythm guitar parts from scratch. The new Part Editor allows full editing control over every single Virtual Guitarist 2 phrase. Each chord is broken up into slices, which the user can manipulate as desired.

Guitarist 2 is shipping February 2006 for Mac OSX for 239 euros. Existing Virtual
Guitarist or Virtual guitarist Electric Edition customers can update to the new
Virtual Guitarist 2 version for 79 euros.

There is a full package of news releases from our friends from IK Multimedia for this Winter NAMM 2006. IK announces that AmpliTube 2, unveiled at AES, will ship in February. AmpliTube 2.0 adds a completely redesigned interface and enhanced DSP engine, 5 separate modules, the ability to build your own custom Amp with more than 20,000 possible amp combinations, 21 stomp effects, 11 rack effects, 2 simultaneous guitar-rigs, more flexible routing, and advanced preset management.

AmpliTube 2.0 will cost $399.